I think it's just as good, just in different ways. As a kid you don't understand a lot (especially if English isn't your first language) and if you are old, like me, and didn't have the internet to help you. It wasn't so much about completing the games or being good at them, you just had fun and did whatever you felt like. Spent so many hours just fucking around and trying things.

As and adult it's still as much fun but more about experiencing the stories, fully completing the games etc. there's also so many more games to choose from and stuff like mods, emulation, remakes etc. I play a lot of indie games too.

Currently playing the Twilight Princess decomp (dusklight), my first time playing the game, and having a blast. I've also dabbled in game making, 3d modeling, pixel art, map making etc. and creating my own mods and stuff like texture packs. Also got several IRL friends who are indie game devs (Dennaton (hotline miami), YCJY (keep driving, sea salt, post void) and more) so it's something I talk a lot about and see part of in my daily life.

I think most people will say that as adults they get to play less games, but I have very much the opposite experience. Not to say I'm playing games 24/7, but rather I wasn't allowed to play much as a kid. 15 minutes a day, and then when I was in high school I got 30 minutes on weekends. I can get that kind of gaming in if I just play on my phone on my transit lmao

Way different experience. As a kid for me i loved the sense of discovery and getting lost in a world.

As an adult, I love games that make me think and plan.

Both great for different reasons

That's hard for me to answer. I have more fun now than I did as a kid, but the games are different.

When I was a kid, Simcity 2000 with 256 color VGA graphics was the cutting edge.

Now in this future space year of 2026, there are factory games, RPG's with full voice acting and character animations, games where you can work on cars or farm crops or check paperwork. There are point and click games that work like Monkey Island, only they're pornographic. Instead of monsters in Doom falling in a sprite of chunks, I can see them chainsawed apart or curb stomped. I can build rockets whether they work or not. I can be a robot driving a boat, powering up old infrastructure and scrapping junk to build machines, when I'm not dodging sharks with freakin' lasers on their heads.

Tl;Dr: Its hard for me to tell if I am having more fun gaming as an adult, or the games are just better now.

When you've played it all, and you're short on free time, unique gameplay that matches your tastes is harder to find.

As an adult I finish more games. I have more patience and there's a lot of things that are better today than when I was a kid (level scaling/difficulty scaling is definitely one, and so is the art).

But I miss storytelling. I miss game mechanics that worked really well but we're based on the limitations of the hardware and software available at the time. I miss having to explore because there were no walkthroughs or guides or anything.

So I think perhaps gaming has gotten better, but my experience with gaming isn't as good now as it was when I was a kid because I have something to compare it to and it can't beat my nostalgia.

It's a tough question to answer, since we can't go forward in time and game as a kid with the games we have now. And playing games now that we had when we were kids is different, since you already know all about them. I think I have to answer "as a kid," though.

As a kid, we had a sense of wonder about all the new things we were unlocking. But how much of that was just being a kid and how much was the still-evolving game industry finding new ways to be exciting? Playing games now feels insane to me, because I grew up being astonished by Galaga and Pac-Man. Comparing those to Elden Ring, which is graphically and difficulty-wise and story-wise light years ahead, just doesn't make sense. At the same time, I don't know that I could have gained much from playing Elden Ring as a kid. For one, I would have been destroyed by the first enemy and turned away crying... not that different as an adult if I'm honest. But I probably played as much Super Mario Bros as I did Elden Ring.

I'm lucky that I have time to game as an adult. Sure, it's only about 3 to 5 hours per week, but that's better than a lot of adults. Some weekends I'll get 10 or 15 hours to game. As a kid I could play for hours a day. I could have friends over most days after school to game with. They could spend the night on weekends to play late. I could borrow their games, and they could borrow mine, so I usually had a new game to try even if I didn't have my own money.

Honestly the thing I feel that kids have in their corner that is really great is a lack of experience.
The kind of awe that I felt when I started up Starcraft or Diablo for the first time just isn't there now, I have too many reference points from earlier games to get that "new and awesome"-feeling from most games anymore.

Personally, gaming was a much bigger deal to me as a kid. I still play as an adult, but they just don't evoke the same feels as they did when I was young. Probably doesn't help that I am stressed, tired, and have a million obligations distracting me, but that's adulthood for you. A lot of the time, I find something like a hike or bike ride more rewarding than games these days.

Yes.

I mean when i was a kid i struggled to get double digit fps in ironforge, but now i struggle to get that same sense of wonder from ul'dah. But also i actually have more than three games so i pick adulthood

The pros of gaming as an adult is that you now have the money to go buy all the games you wanted to play as a kid. The cons are that you no longer have the time.

I have to say that the lack of responsibility and abundance of time makes gaming as a kid better.

College Adult, growing up my parents only let me play games on the weekends and even then it was rare that I could play for longer then like 2 hours. Most my crazy long gaming sessions occurred when I was at a friend's house and it turned into an obsession because of how much I was limited.

You should add a third category, cause I had the best time playing games in college. So many late night gaming sessions with friends, and while I didn't have money to buy many games, there were ways to obtain them.

As an adult I have more money and pretty good at balancing gaming with everything else, but it's mostly solo gaming because friends I would play with in college are also busy all the time

I think gaming as an adult is better honestly. But that’s thanks to all the experience and understanding built up from gaming as a kid. I would not have had the patience or understanding to play and complete some games as a kid that I was able to do now.

As a kid I had time play games but no money to buy games. As an adult I have money to buy games but time to play games …

i think it depends on your circumstances in life more then anything else

As you said, there are pros and cons. A child's brain is something else, I remember excitement and curiosity that an adult's brain just cannot replicate. I don't think I'll ever feel what I felt when I played Half-Life or World of Warcraft for the first time. Games are still enjoyable though - just in a different way.

I think gaming as a kid was better simply because of the fact there was a bit of mystery to it.

you rarely knew about upcoming game releases unless it was a major title or was heavily advertised in like GamePro or EGM. most of the time you'd go to the store or a rental place and you'd discover a game right there on the shelf. Some of my favourite games I never knew existed until I rented them from Blockbuster. And many times recommendations game from previously said magazines or word of mouth via your friends. And if a game was cancelled prior to release chances are you wouldn't be bummed about it simply because you probably didn't know it existed in the first place.

We don't have that now. now everything is covered from head to toe everywhere or in early access or whatever. takes the fun out of it.

Also there was nothing better than picking up a game and reading the manual on the drive home.

Thanks to finding out about piracy rather early there was no longer the financial limitations either.

So yeah playing in childhood was much better. I could actually focus and go along with storylines and actually have time to practice and get better at games.

Nowadays, story based games are completely out, because once i eventually can play again i would need a recap of what happened last time and thats ignoring the fact that as soon as i put on earphones to even try to focus on a game, my wife instantly gets jealous and tries to do everything possible to get some attention.
Similarly for any team based or skill based games, there just isn't time to practice. So all multiplayer games are out as well, because it kinda sucks when in the evening i eventually can boot up my PC, start a game, launch a match and then get insta killed by past version of myself(basement dwelling 14 year old who practices every waking moment).